HTC devices held by German customs released

2013-03-08

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    Taipei, Feb. 20 (CNA) HTC Corp. products that were held by Germany's Customs Administration last week have been released, the Taiwanese smartphone maker said Wednesday.

    Although HTC has not yet received any written explanation of what happened, German customs officials apparently considered that the border seizure requested by IPCom GmbH & Co., a German patent-licensing firm, was "groundless," HTC said in a statement.

    They eventually released the seized HTC products without asking HTC to put up a guarantee deposit, the Taoyuan-based company said.

    HTC did not specify which products were seized and whether its sales in Germany would be affected.
    The statement came a day after media reported that some of HTC's shipments that arrived in Germany between Feb. 4 and Feb. 10 were held up by customs at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport.

    The seizure was the result of an ongoing patent dispute between HTC and IPCom, which has applied to have HTC's third-generation (3G)-compatible devices seized, according to the reports.

    The two companies have sued each other in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany for patent infringement over the past few years.

(Focus Taiwan)

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